Reptile & Amphibian Forums

hey.
at bluetegu.com, if you look at their price list they mention that their blue/red crosses mated and laid fertile eggs! usually, hybrids are sterile! i don't know whether or not that will effect the taxonomy and species names... i wonder whether the offspring will look just like their parents or different. does anyone have any photos of blue/red tegus as hatchlings or adults? do any of you have one? not that i can get one, but i'm just really curious about the original hybrids and their offspring from a scientific point of view. any info, experience, opinions are appreciated whether about behavior, appearance, anything. thanks a bundle.

I have one that's a year old 09-18-03. Contact me off forum at birddog5151@yahoo.com

Mike B

What do the cross breeds look like?

It should have no effect on taxonomy. Hybribization would need to occur under natural conditions...in nature. Even in nature there are zones of hybribization between overlapping ranges of closely related species.

Brian

it might effect taxonomy in regards to actually deciding to give blues an official species/genus name...

Does anyone have any photos of an adult hybrid?

Brian

yeah, i'd like to see photos of an adult red/blue cross. on www.bluetegu.com they have photos (but only 2, i'd like to see more!) of a hatchling blue/red tegu, but i really want to know what adults look like. also, i'd like to see pictures of the blue/red X blue/red crosses, too. anybody able and willing to show us some hybrid photos?

I wonder how big it would. The B&W over all size crossed witht the more massive red.

Brian

i don't think it would be as long as a black and white... if anything they would be a little smaller than your average red and a little bigger than your average blue. i don't think anyone has tried to hybridize the argentine black and whites, just the red and blues... i wonder...
red/blue- purple?
blue/b&w- pastel blue?
red/b&w- pink? (now that would just be odd...)
i doubt that it would all work out that way though, but you never know...
another point... why not make albino blue/red crosses? maybe then you could get het babies and breed them back to eachother to get albino hybrids? then you're only a hop skip and a jump from carrying that albino gene over to red tegus. but again, i dunno if it's that simple... the albino gene in blues may not have the same effect on reds...
well... i think i'm done postualting now...

oops

Actually if you read back in the old forum there has been attempts to cross blues with black, reds with blacks etc...

i must have skipped over that one... if it's not too much trouble could you give me the lowdown on it? thanks. if not, i'll look for it, but knowing my luck, i'll skip over it again...

well, i looked in the archives, but couldn't really find anything more than posts that went like this... "if i have a (random color) tegu and a (different color) tegu, can i breed them? what would happen?" but... i don't know if any of these people followed up, succeeded, failed, etc. there are no pictures of hybrids (other than the red/blue hatchlings) and no exuberant posts claiming success... so, i have to assume that the attempts have failed (why? bad husbandry? biological incompatibility? freak accident? who knows!) or that no action was taken to really try and make it happen... then again... maybe i just skipped that post, but i don't think so... i found quite a few of those "what if" posts, but never a "i tried" or "i did."

Of course people have been trying various combinations for years, it's in their nature. It's kind of surprising that Ron did get those blue/red hybrids. It's good to know that they're fertile too! Here's an old post where he himself says

"I personally believe that the tegu species are too different to hybridize easily and may not be possible at all"... "one incidence of a friend who's Argentine B&W tegu bred a Blue tegu and all offspring were dead in the egg"... "I have kept pairs of Red tegus and Argentine B&W tegus together year round and both pairs successfully bred but did not hybridize"

I suggest you read this whole thread it's pretty interesting. I'd like to see the pic of the "possible new species" they were talking about.
http://forum.kingsnake.com/tegu/messages/1296.html

P.S. It doesn't mean that it'll never happen that someday someone will get some different hybrid offspring. I sure hope so, if you feel inclined to try please give it a shot!

hey, thanks. i must've missed that one...
so... i guess that they just got really lucky with the red/blue hybrids being able to survive. they got even luckier when those hybrids actually turned out to be fertile! part of a definition of a species is that they are closely related enough to produce fertile offspring. other animal hybrids (ligers, mules) are sterile. i don't know whether this means that these animals are much more closely related than we think, or that rules we thought applied for mammals and other types of animal are null and void for these cold blooded critters. i mean, i've seen tons of hybrid snakes, but i've always been told (or just assumed) that they were either sterile or just crosses of subspecies, not species. maybe this will effect whatever scientific name they decide to tag onto blue tegus. who knows, they may have to rework the tegu species names all over again. does anyone know if the red/blue hybrids have any sorts of problems? it's sort of hard to believe that the reds and the blues (while so different in size, diet, range and behavior) just meshed perfectly enough genetically to produce healthy, fertile offspring. yeah... so again, does anybody have any pics of red/blue crosses?

thanks a ton...

p.s. oh, btw, ROLLIN... do you have any pics of your tegus as babies? i got two li'l guys from agama international this summer, and i wanted to contrast some other agama offspring to my own in order to try and get an idea of what mine might wind up looking like.

Just Taz is from agama.

hey, thanks.
once i get some decent pictures of my agama international babies, i'll post them, too. how old was he when that picture was taken and how old is he now? also... do you have any before and after shots of Jazz also? if yes, thanks. if no, thanks anyway!

I sent the St. Pierre's an email yesterday asking them to send me a picture of the red x blue tegus they are selling but they haven't responded yet. If/when they do, I will post the pic.
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Danielle
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1 male Chinese water dragon, 3 female leos, 1 adopted male iguana, 2 green anoles, 1 blue anole, 3 male bettas, 1 female betta...
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cool! we'll be waiting...

Well both these baby pics were from before they hibernated so that's less then 2 months old. They both hibernated for 5-6 months. Our girl Jazz (pics) from bluetegu.com is 39". Taz boy is from agamainternational.com and is now ehem 4' 3" long. They've both had about 9-10 months of growth total now. Their growth spurt has ended (thank goodness) but they are still growing oh maybe an inch per month.

thanks again... it's amazing how different hatchlings look from adults. about the growth spurts... both my tegus are at about 20' now. butch is a little heftier than sundance, although i feed them about the same amount of food (i actually give sundance extra, hoping that he'll bulk up too). anyhow... butch was about 15, 16 inches or so (he moved to much to get measured well) when i got him at this year's daytona expo. one of the things i've noticed is that sundance spends more time basking and being active. not that either of them are lethargic, but sundance is always up at the crack of dawn and on the prowl. it's so cute when they bask together! anyhow... that's it. thanks for posting those pix! once i can get the little guys to sit still i'll post a picture (if the gods of the digital camera be willing...).

I've always feed both of mine as much as they'll eat during their growth spurt. Lately now it's just once every other day if that. Funny but it was the girl Jazz that was bigger and growing faster up till about 30 some inches then genetics took over and my male Taz shot past her. Now it's obvious which one's the male, 39" compared to 51" makes a huge difference.

Here they are as juveniles.

which one is which in this picture?

thanks,
steele

The one up front is the girl tegu; Jazz, the one behind is Taz

that's what i thought, but i wasn't sure...

thanks!

I just posted pictures of our yearling hybrids (red x blue) and the offspring that they produced .
Follow the Hybrid Tegu link on the left hand side or click on the small photo of the hybrid tegu .
BlueTegu.com

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Stella St.Pierre
www.bluetegu.com

I really like how their nose, head, and neck look. Very reasonable prices too. Keep up the good work!

wow, they're different looking... thanks for letting us know you posted them! is anybody going to get one? i would if i could...

thanks, ST. PIERRE!